Ok, so let me start off by saying I recolonize Gary's hard work and do appreciate anyone's attempt to help out the community.

My experience with epg123 last night rendered my system useless for live tv at this point and WIN7 MCE needs to be reinstalled from scratch to get it working. Again no offense to anyone this is just what happened from the steps I performed.

I read through the steps on the epg123 web site first to makes sure I understood what was going on and this didn't happen, but I think I know where this went wrong. I made a few passes at this to try and get this to work and the one thing that hosed my system was the very first step where you delete the DB from the ehome dir in programdata (I think this is what hosed it anyway).

I made my first attempt without deleting anything and set up epg123 and it looked like it processed all of the guide data for 7days just fine. then I continued on with the rest of the steps as instructed including the regedit stuff. and the only thing I was able to get was no guide data. I then made another pass and deleted the ehome DB in programdata and tried again every step. I followed the instructions from the epg123 web page implicitly. So after many attempts I gave up and put my deleted files back and rebooted and re-ran the original setup accepting the guide agreement this time in hope of restoring my original guide data, but all i get is WMC encountered a serious error and I should reboot and/or re-install WMC.

I saw one of the comments from my original post from Gary, and he wasn't sure this actually supported Win7, so this might be one of the issues, not sure though.

At this point if anyone wants me to test anything I am more then open to that, as I stated in my original post I am moving to Tivo as a result of the issues with ongoing guide data, and not this attempt to fix yet another thing that MS killed. This just sped up my decision, and in the end I think I will be happy it did. It was a good run and 7MC was awesome and always just worked, but since Rovi took over the guide hasn't always been correct and things went down hill quickly.

I am sure that Gary will get this working, if it isn't already and most of you will be able to continue on with 7MC. Good luck and if I can help out just ask.

EDIT: I should mention that I have customized my setup pretty heavily using 3rd party plug-ins and 7MC toolbox to make over the UI. This in and of itself may be why this happened as well. I am going to attempt to restore my system to original and retry these steps again.

Skybolt wrote:Ok, so let me start off by saying I recolonize Gary's hard work and do appreciate anyone's attempt to help out the community.

My experience with epg123 last night rendered my system useless for live tv at this point and WIN7 MCE needs to be reinstalled from scratch to get it working. Again no offense to anyone this is just what happened from the steps I performed.

I read through the steps on the epg123 web site first to makes sure I understood what was going on and this didn't happen, but I think I know where this went wrong. I made a few passes at this to try and get this to work and the one thing that hosed my system was the very first step where you delete the DB from the ehome dir in programdata (I think this is what hosed it anyway).

I made my first attempt without deleting anything and set up epg123 and it looked like it processed all of the guide data for 7days just fine. then I continued on with the rest of the steps as instructed including the regedit stuff. and the only thing I was able to get was no guide data. I then made another pass and deleted the ehome DB in programdata and tried again every step. I followed the instructions from the epg123 web page implicitly. So after many attempts I gave up and put my deleted files back and rebooted and re-ran the original setup accepting the guide agreement this time in hope of restoring my original guide data, but all i get is WMC encountered a serious error and I should reboot and/or re-install WMC.

I saw one of the comments from my original post from Gary, and he wasn't sure this actually supported Win7, so this might be one of the issues, not sure though.

At this point if anyone wants me to test anything I am more then open to that, as I stated in my original post I am moving to Tivo as a result of the issues with ongoing guide data, and not this attempt to fix yet another thing that MS killed. This just sped up my decision, and in the end I think I will be happy it did. It was a good run and 7MC was awesome and always just worked, but since Rovi took over the guide hasn't always been correct and things went down hill quickly.

I am sure that Gary will get this working, if it isn't already and most of you will be able to continue on with 7MC. Good luck and if I can help out just ask.

EDIT: I should mention that I have customized my setup pretty heavily using 3rd party plug-ins and 7MC toolbox to make over the UI. This in and of itself may be why this happened as well. I am going to attempt to restore my system to original and retry these steps again.

Skybolt wrote:I made my first attempt without deleting anything and set up epg123 and it looked like it processed all of the guide data for 7days just fine. then I continued on with the rest of the steps as instructed including the regedit stuff. and the only thing I was able to get was no guide data.

One thing (may just be omission), is no mention of doing the lineup selection or channel remapping afterward. "No Guide data" is expected after the epg123 run (especially if the database/%programdata% content was removed) until WMC's lineup is remapped to the "EPG123" one manually or with the Lineup Selector tool. From the story, it says all the steps were done, but it isn't explicitly mentioned.

webminster wrote:One thing (may just be omission), is no mention of doing the lineup selection or channel remapping afterward. "No Guide data" is expected after the epg123 run (especially if the database/%programdata% content was removed) until WMC's lineup is remapped to the "EPG123" one manually or with the Lineup Selector tool. From the story, it says all the steps were done, but it isn't explicitly mentioned.

This is the step that has me most nervous and reason I have not attempted this. If we have a thousand potential channels we keep in our guide; we would have to map them out the first go round manually?

webminster wrote:... One thing (may just be omission), is no mention of doing the lineup selection or channel remapping afterward. "No Guide data" is expected after the epg123 run (especially if the database/%programdata% content was removed) until WMC's lineup is remapped to the "EPG123" one manually or with the Lineup Selector tool. From the story, it says all the steps were done, but it isn't explicitly mentioned.

I didn't mention all of the steps performed because I stated I followed the setup on the epg123 web site step by step. but yes I ran the lineup tool to align the epg to epg123. I did not get to the re-mapping because the lineup was never added for what ever reason and I didn't know what needed to be re-mapped.

Ok so since I couldn't roll back to my original Rovi EPG, I tried the epg123 again except I did not delete the files in step 1 as directed. I did follow everything else step by step again. I was to add the lineup and have the new EPG up and working.

Here is what caused my original issues, as I am able to reproduce this.

I made an Achronis backup image last fall after I got the new Rovi guide working. This remarkably was able to be restored and I was able to have my setup working again after I put the files back that I deleted from the programdata dir.

After I was up and running with the guide expiring on 3/18, I followed the steps exactly as the listed on the epg123 web site, except I did not delete any files for the "Clean Install". Also when you disagree to the guide data in the WMC setup, you can not get a guide back because the Rovi site is down and won't allow an update.

So before you proceed with installing the epg123, make sure you backup your system and separately back up your ProgramData files. Then proceed with the switch, and again I would not delete any files, just switch to epg123. Good luck with however you proceed. And a big thanks to Gary on his EPG effort.

webminster wrote:One thing (may just be omission), is no mention of doing the lineup selection or channel remapping afterward. "No Guide data" is expected after the epg123 run (especially if the database/%programdata% content was removed) until WMC's lineup is remapped to the "EPG123" one manually or with the Lineup Selector tool. From the story, it says all the steps were done, but it isn't explicitly mentioned.

This is the step that has me most nervous and reason I have not attempted this. If we have a thousand potential channels we keep in our guide; we would have to map them out the first go round manually?

You can map everything out manually, or use the Lineup Selector tool by glugglug which will do it automagically. The function will be included in epg123 with no ECD yet. I plan on actually starting work on that feature this week, but I have a lot of learning to do with the microsoft epg and store dlls.

First off, I would like to thank Skybolt for starting this thread to attack this unique failure and apologize for my somewhat passive-aggressive response to a post here.

I do have a few questions to bound this issue...epg123 certainly supports Win7, definitely not Vista, so the OS is not the issue. A hardware question would be what tuners are you using? Procedure wise, in Lineup Selector, did the pull-down selector not have "Media Center Electronic Program Guide in 1-2-3 (EPG123)" available? This would certainly indicate the import did not take.

To possibly help out, do you still have the trace.log file from epg123 to possibly diagnose any issues there?

garyan2 wrote:... To possibly help out, do you still have the trace.log file from epg123 to possibly diagnose any issues there?

Sorry I don't have the log from when the system was broken. I had re-image to try and repair the issue. I only have the log from the working system. If I have time this weekend I can reproduce the issue and post that log. I'll do my best to try an make that happen.

I am using cable cards and the silicon dust prime's - six tuners in total (Reg hack). I am also running Recorded TV HD, with the standard "TV" menu gone. I also got rid of the all the other stock menus and only have custom add on ones. Not sure if that matters or not, but thought I'd let you know.

The thing that caused the issue for me was deleting the database files and not being able to complete the setup. It left the system in an undetermined state with no recovery options. Your epg123 app seemed to work even when the system was broken. I could see everything being downloaded and processed. I just could not get the guide to be selected, so I also got the pop up message to setup the guide.

Re-running 7mc setup to add Rovi back was not an option since the original files were deleted and rovi was not responding. Even restoring the deleted files did not allow the system to get out of that state(not sure why?). So I re-imaged.

After I re-imaged the system and got things back to where I was, I started over again. I performed the exact same procedures, only omitting step 0, deleting the files, and everything worked the first time.

I tried to reproduce the issue last night and the only way I can do this is to re-image. Is there any way of going back to rovi without re-imaging? I still get the serious error message when I try. I did reset the the guide using the tool.

So I re-imaged my 7MC and got the listings back from Rovi. Re-Imaging was my only alternative.

I did buy a Tivo Romeo Pro HD, and a mini. I plan on running them side by side for a few weeks and see how things go. I already like the fact that I don't have to worry about when the system is going to die next and be in a panic to get it fixed. The one pass stuff is a little different but I basically works the same way as MC. I also like that the streaming apps are now in the same UI and not on a different box. I don't care for the interface at all as there is no fancy anything to the UI. But it functional and everything just works, there is something to be said for that.

I really wish 7MC was still being support so the features could be there like they were a few years ago, but the simple fact is it's not and it's going to go away at some point. At some point you need to stop thinking about tv and just watch it. I went though this when I switched from SageTv to 7MC. Sage was incredible, just no HD, So 7MC was the next best answer. Hopefully Tivo is the next best thing from 7MC.

Anyway, good luck with the epg123 stuff, Gary is doing a great job with it and that should carry most for a few more tears hopefully. I think my issues were just timing with the setup and not doing the right thing before I switched, and that would be back up with a good image then modify 7MC!

Skybolt wrote:I did buy a Tivo Romeo Pro HD, and a mini. I plan on running them side by side for a few weeks and see how things go.

I did the same thing when I built my first WMC HTPC. I had two Series 3 Tivos and kept them both running along with my HTPC until I felt confident WMC was working as it should. It basically never skipped a beat so I sold one of the Tivos. I kept the 2nd one in service for use in the family room after a failed attempt at trying to use WMC extenders. I eventually replaced the last Tivo with an Intel NUC. That was a few months after I received delivery of my Ceton InfiniTV 4 from the first production batch. I've been using WMC ever since and couldn't be happier. My Tivo days are long behind me. All of my subscribed channels are copy freely on FIOS so sharing recordings is not a problem.

Yeah, I have to agree with you on the happy with 7MC, I also love it. I just don't love where it's not going and earlier this week I hosed my system and almost couldn't recover from it. That is what made me switch, not because I don't like 7MC. None of my channels are copy freely, so I have to use 360's as clients, that part of 7MC I don't care for. So I am now in the process of ordering Tivo Mini's. I don't dislike Tivo, but it's not 7MC either. There UI is functional, not glitzy. I really hate change, but sometimes it has to happen at some point.